Light and Air, Blood and Stone
by KrimsonKitsu
Summary: Charles and Erik meet at the cusp of adulthood, carrying the burdens of two very different worlds, but united by a single goal... or so they think.
1. Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor

(Author's note: So, I watched the first X-men movie again for the first time in what has to be a decade and I can't help be fascinated by the past between Charles and Erik that was hinted. According to the Professor, they met when he was 17, which is a good deal earlier than First class. I wanted to play with the idea of the two men meeting at such a raw time in their lives and how that relationship might have developed.

Also, this chapter and probably others will have mentions of the Holocaust simply because for Erik, it is still very much at the forefront of his mind. And I feel like ignoring it would ignore a great deal of what makes Erik who he is.)

~xXx~January 24th, 1949~xXx~  
It was raining, funny how it always seemed to be raining nowadays. The water poured down in great angry sheets, as the wind raged. Most of the other passengers had retreated into the bowels of the ship, doing what they could to ride out the storm. But not him.

He stood on the bow of the ship, shivering as his wasted body was buffeted by the rain and wind. Even years after the war, the ghetto, the camps… food had been scarce. Post-war Germany had been almost as dire of a hell as the war, and the Red Army soldiers were hardly more sympathetic than German soldiers. But none of that mattered now. All that mattered was what rose up from the dark depths of the storm, the very thing that had kept him out in the icy downpour. Even in the darkness, Erik could pick out the pale green of the weathered copper, the folds of her sculpted robes, the torch held aloft.

She was beautiful, even around the grim backdrop, just as he knew she would be. He leaned against the metal railing his eyes glued the figure. He'd seen pictures before, heard the stories as his father told them over dinner of a land across the ocean, far from the old wars, of a land where capitalism, not Imperialism, was the driving power. Where a man could make his own way, regardless of the circumstances in which he was born. Where there were no Nuremberg laws. The boy had listened, but with the same detachment as he had about fairytales told to himself and his sister as they fell asleep. America sounded just as fantastic to his young ears.

And now he was knocking at her proverbial gates.

He should be happy, he supposed. To have escaped the graveyard that was Europe; it was nothing short of a miracle. He should have been happy, ecstatic even. And he probably would have been, if happiness didn't feel as far away as those nighttime stories told by a man who no longer existed. By the man whose very name had been wiped from history. Whose body had disappeared and mingled with the ashes of millions of others, to be carried off by the wind and dispersed over an unfamiliar Polish landscape.

~xXx~  
The rain showed no signs of letting up, the raindrops echoing through the empty manor. Not that Charles heard any of it as he slept, no the rain that resonated in his mind came down on a very scene, on a boy huddled under a jacket far too thin for the weather, his face aged by the gauntness of his cheeks and the past horrors reflected in his deep set eyes. Charles had heard about the events in Europe, had seen the newsreels, the pictures, the reports so macabre that it was hard to believe. He'd seen the chimneys, the pits filled with skeletal pale limbs and dark hair. He had struggled to pronounce the alien names that soon became terrifyingly familiar as more and more reports filtered across the Atlantic. Chelmno, Treblinka, Belzec, Majdanek… Auschwitz-Birkenau… Charles had seen the pictures, but nothing compared him for the images he'd seen playing behind those haunted eyes. Even staring at the Statue of Liberty, the symbol of hope for countless of travelers, refugees, and immigrants, the boy's mind couldn't escape the barbed wire and roughshod barracks.

Charles mind couldn't escape either. He could feel the whispers of the boy's fellow passengers, their excitement; their nervous anticipation all seemed to congeal into one larger consciousness. But Charles remained with the boy, as though his psyche was a black hole in which Charles couldn't escape. He was at once struck with an overwhelming pity and a powerful fascination for this boy. The boy who dared to brave the ongoing squall to face the symbol of the land he was arriving on. Whose mind, unlike so many nearby, was filled not with plans, but with images, with the only proof that he had once been human, rather than a reminder of atrocity. It was strange, and almost overwhelming to be so immediately immersed in such immense memories.

There was only one new thought that Charles could latch onto, a single name that repeated in the boy's mind in a sharp staccato. It wasn't his name. Charles was sure of that. And yet the boy repeated it so much, his lips forming around the words as though they were trying to memorize the feel of them, so that they didn't feel foreign when he needed them. So that they sounded as though they had been with him his entire life. Charles watched his trembling lips repeat themselves, though the sound of the storm, but it was the look in his eyes that caught the telepath's attention. There was a determination in them, a cold steel that seemed to run through them as he practiced the alias that was meant to distance himself from a past too painful to remember and too important to forget.

And when Charles woke up with a start, it was with the name "Erik Lehnsherr" echoing in his mind and the storm still raging outside.

~xXx~

Next up: Erik needs a hobby... come to think of it so does Charles.


	2. Farewell, My Lovely

Chapter 2: Farewell, My Lovely

Author's note: Because yay history! In the first X-men movie, Erik mentioned that he first saw the Statue of Liberty in 1949. Most likely he was able to come to the US as result of Truman's Displaced Persons Act, passed in 1948 which allowed for an additional 202,000 people to immigrate to the US, beyond the annual quota of official immigrants. Who said fanfics can't be educational?

~xXx~ March 17th 1949~xXx~

All told, it wasn't such a bad place to be imprisoned. Erik sat in the windowsill, next to his bed, watching as the sun pouring through the blinds, sending golden light dancing over white washed walls. Sure, they didn't call it a prison. Instead the nurses and brisk men with slicked hair and crisp white coats insisted that this was a hospital. He was there to recover, to regain his health. Whatever they wanted to tell him, Erik knew better. He was not allowed leave, he was at the whims of the staff. It was a prison. However, he couldn't deny that there were perks.

Namely the food.

God there was so much food. Erik had been eight years old when they'd first been taken from his home in Munich and tossed in with the rest of the starving, beaten masses in Warsaw. Nine years, he'd gone without a true meal, nine years he'd lived in a state of constant starvation. Even after the war, food was a luxury, one that few survivors of Auschwitz could come by. But now, there were three full meals a day. At first they were small, mostly bread and broth so not to overwhelm his system. But as the days went by, the food became more substantive. And now, there were stews and meat, and actual vegetables! Erik couldn't remember the last time he'd eaten something green that hadn't been grass. And coffee… Erik had never had coffee. Sure there had been some strange dark liquid at the camps that had been termed "coffee" but here? It was rich and the warmth of it clung to Erik's chest long after he'd finished the cup. And there was even cream! Real cream. Even the wealthy in Germany had trouble finding cream after the war. America really was the land of plenty.

He was going to leave. That was never a question. While it might have been a comfortable prison, it was a prison nonetheless and Erik had only too recently gained freedom. No one was going to take it away again. And so Erik Lehnsherr, waited. He ate, and he complied, and he was a model patient, and he waited. It was only a matter of time before he was strong enough to set out on his own, and then—

"Oh!" There was a clatter, and Erik jumped as he heard the metal tray crash to the tiled floor. He looked back from the window to see a boy, probably around his age, drop to his feet to frantically collect the various utensils and cups as they scattered, trying to catch them before they rolled under any of the other beds that were set up in the great hall. He watched on for a moment, eying the boy as he scrambled. Though he was slim, it was clear that it was not due to any stint of malnourishment or hardship. His skin was supple and unbroken, and his chestnut hair shone thick and glossy. His sweater was finely woven and his patent leather shoes were immaculately polished. He looked up at Erik, and Erik couldn't help but notice two brightly colored eyes were set above delicate cheekbones and framed by high arching brows, which gave him a perpetually inquisitive look. The boy gave Erik a sheepish smile.

"Mind helping a fellow out?" His voice was softly accented, though Erik could hear the unmistakable American tones running through it. New England, if he had to guess, though someone who had clearly spent at least a few years abroad in Britain. Erik always had an ear for languages, and accents. Before the Cattle Trains, he learned English, and French, and Italian, dreaming of the day when he could see the world. After the war, while his world lay in ashes, he'd spent a great number of time in DP camps talking to the various American soldiers that had been stationed to "guard the residents for their own protection." He'd had gained a lot of experience with a number of American dialects this way, exchanging a kind word for the occasional chocolate or additional piece of bread.

"Sure." Abandoning his perch on the windowsill, Erik knelt down beside the boy, deftly collecting the cutlery and carefully piling it back on the platter. He took the platter and balanced it in his left hand as he offered the stranger his right hand to help him up. The boy took it gratefully and got to his feet, brushing off his khakis.

"Thank you, friend." He said with an easy laugh, brushing his wavy hair back from his face. Erik couldn't help but notice the way those sky-blue eyes swept over his body, as though he was studying Erik. Erik's discomfort must had shown plainly on his face, because the boy grimaced.

"Sorry, how rude of me," he laughed again and extended a hand out to Erik. "Name's Charles. Charles Xavier. It's a pleasure."

Erik's brows raised incredulously. He hadn't arrived at that conclusion just yet. Still he slipped his hand into Charles' and gave it a curt shake. "My name is Erik Lehnserr." He'd been practicing, the name rolled off of his tongue naturally now. Charles' grin widened, and Erik actually felt like he had to avert his eyes, staring at a smile like that felt a bit like looking directly into the sun.

"Erik then!" Charles clapped his hands together, looking positively delighted. Erik gave him an unimpressed look before holding out the platter for him to take.

"…What exactly are you doing here?" He asked bluntly. "You're certainly not a patient, and you don't strike me as a doctor."

"Really? Why not?" Charles' head tilted as he took the platter. "Why don't you think of me as a Doctor?"

"You're too young for one," Erik replied, feeling the first twinges of irritation. Did this boy think he was an idiot? "And I've yet to see any doctor around here carry anything more than a clipboard and a stethoscope."

Charles laughed in delight, as though Erik had just told some particularly witty joke. The problem was, Erik didn't see just what was so funny.

"You have a good point," Charles conceded. "I'm a volunteer. Figured I might as well use my holiday for something useful."

"Holiday?"

"I'm a university student. We're out for the summer so I figured I should go out and actually be a part of the world for a change, rather than stay shut up in a library." He shrugged his shoulders.

"…You'd be better off in the library," Erik replied bitterly. "The world is shit."

Charles, to his credit didn't try to probe deeper into Erik's last comment, but rather latched onto the first. "Do you like to read?"

"I did." Erik wasn't lying there. As a boy, he preferred the worlds crafted on paper to the world around him. His mother helped run a bookshop, back when his people were allowed to own things and he'd spent many days curled up amongst the bookshelves.

"What did you read?"

It was an innocuous question and yet… for the life of him, Erik didn't have an answer. What did he read? All he could remember was the smell of leather, the warmth of his mother's voice as she conducted business—

Erik didn't realize that he was crying until Charles stepped back, a dawning look of horror mixed with a strange sort of understanding on his face. Erik hastily rubbed at his eyes, angry with himself. It had been a long time since he'd let himself get lost in a memory of the past and he'd gone and showed weakness to a damned stranger.

Charles, on his part, managed to regain his own composure, a polite smile on his lips. "You look tired, Erik. You should get to some rest." He juggled the platter to glance at his watch and snorted. "And I should get back to work before my boss yells at me again."

Erik wasn't tired, but he wasn't about to pass up a chance to escape this strange new boy. His cheerfulness was almost painful to see. "It was nice to meet you, Charles Xavier."

"Same to you, Erik Lehnsherr." Charles nodded his head with a smile. "Take care of yourself."

Erik didn't even have a chance to respond before the boy was off again, disappearing down towards the kitchens. Erik just shook his head and settled back into his spot by the window again.

"Charles Xavier…" He murmured the name, almost without realizing he'd done it.

~xXx~

The next morning came too early for Erik. He woke with a groan and sat up, rubbing at his eyes as if with enough pressure, he could blot out the dreams that still rankled behind his eyelids. He glanced back towards the nightstand, only to frown at the new addition adorning it. His hand reached over to pick up the book, marveling at the feel of it in his hand. It felt both comfortingly familiar and wholly alien at the same time. As he turned it over to read the cover, Erik couldn't help but snort as he read the title.

 _Farewell, My Lovely._

It seemed this Charles Xavier had a sense of humor.

~xXx~

Author's note: Farewell, My Lovely is a detective novel written by Raymond Chandler and was published in 1940. Outside of Charles using the title as a pithy joke, it makes sense that he'd want to leave Erik with a tawdry murder mystery that took place in California. That way Erik can get lost in a book without constant reminders about his past.

Also, the two of them meeting in a hospital is a nod to the comics. Charles, following a breakup and returning from the Korean war, decides to travel the world and ends up volunteering in a hospital in Haifa, dedicated to Holocaust victims who are struggling with life after liberation. There he meets Erik, going by the name of Magnus at the time. It's a really fascinating story in its own right, but I couldn't really explain why teenaged Charles would end up in Israel. So I kept the spirit of the idea and airlifted the hospital to New York. Creative License is a heck of a thing.  
~~~

Next up: Two can play at that game, Charles.


End file.
